The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost
英詩內容
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
作者簡介
Robert Frost
(1874-1963)
Robert Lee Frost was one of America's best-known and best-loved poets. He was born in San Francisco, but was famous for his poetry of describing the natural beauty in New England. He went to England in 1912 and was recognized as a great poet after he published his two books of poems: A Boy's Will in 1913 and North of Boston in 1914. After the popularity of the success he made in England, he returned back to New England, settled in New Hampshire, and had his poetry- writing and college-teaching career there. Frost usually wrote and spoke in simple language with quiet humor, yet he was wise in the ways of the world. His poems often begin in delight and end in wisdom, revealing universal significance in them, and call for readers' deep thought behind the poems' description of familiar scenes in their ordinary life. Nevertheless, this simplicity of language expressing the universal essence of life and the easy speech patterns and rhymes attract even more people to appreciate the meaning of life and become attached to his poems. No wonder the poet was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1924, 1931, 1937, and 1943. And that can fully account for the fact that he was considered to be far more popular and more successful than the majority of his contemporaries.
內容分析
Frost frequently used concrete words with conveyed meaning. In the poem, the "road" couldliterally represent the road man walks or rides on, while it can also be explained abstractly the direction of man's life or the path he follows in his career. As for the metrical patterns, Frost person- ally had a preference for iambic tetrameter, which he adopted in this poem. In addition, Frost loved to use regular rhyme schemes; therefore, we see abaab, cdccd, efeef, and ghggh in the poem.
Frost's poems are often rich in images and metaphors mixed with familiar scenes of life to describe human weaknesses, such as, in this poem,being unable to "have it all" in the real world. The traveler (probably Frost himself), facing the diverged roads, sighed about not being able to choose both. However, after choosing one, man's life may become different. So, the traveler stood long and wondered which to choose. Once the road was chosen, the decision was made, and all the difference was made. What was discouraging was that the result was what he had to live with for the rest of his life, though with a little hope that he did want to go back and take another road to get to know what "the road not taken" was like. Thus, by reading this plain, colloquial, yet meaningful poem, we human beings realize the crucial part of making a decision. We need to move on with what we choose and there is nothing we can do to change the past.
教學活動
Pre-reading Activities:
1. Students predict the theme of the poem from its title "The Road Not Taken".
2. Students scan the poem and pay attention to the plain, direct language, the simple, regular rhymes, and the graceful style.
3. Introduce Robert Frost and students discuss which would be better, being a poet or being a farmer, if they were in Frost's position?
While-reading Activities:
1. Teach important words, phrases or grammatical constructions that appear in the poem.
2. Analyze rhyme schemes and point out the images and metaphors.
3. Students answer comprehension questions about the underlying meanings of the poem.
4. Students discuss the dilemma of choosing a road and talk about the criteria in small groups. Furthermore, they talk about the reasons why the traveler (the poet) chose the road "less traveled by" and which they would choose if they were put in the situation.
5. Students practice reading the poem aloud and act out the theme with appropriate gestures to accompany either a choral or an individual recitation.
Post-reading Activities:
1. Students rewrite the poem in their own words to create a short paragraph.
2. Students can write a composition, "Making Decisions" with two paragraphs. The first paragraph starts with the topic sentence, "Growing up means making my own decisions." The second paragraph starts withthe topic sentence, "The hardest decision that I ever made was ___________." to talk about their own personally experiences.
參考書目
1. Lazar, Gillian. (1993). Literature and Language Teaching. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
2. Ur, Penny and Wright, Andrew. (1992). Five-Minute Activities. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
3. Sadow, Stephen A. (1982). Idea Bank. U. S. A.: Heinle and Heinle Publishers.
4. 徐玉婷，嚴能馨，謝岱芬，劉郁伶，葉玫里： 南一高中英文第三冊教師手冊，台南： 南一書局
5. 施玉惠，林茂松， Sarah Brooks: 遠東高中英文第五冊教師手冊， 台北： 遠東圖書公司
6. 國立編譯館： 高級中學英文第六冊教師手冊，台北： 正中書局
